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RichardKennaway comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong
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Chinese internal martial arts: Tai Chi, Xingyi, and Bagua. The word "chi" does not carve reality at the joints: There is no literal bodily fluid system parallel to blood and lymph. But I can make training partners lightheaded with a quick succession of strikes to Ren Ying (ST9) then Chi Ze (LU5); I can send someone stumbling backward with some fairly light pushes; after 30-60 seconds of sparring to develop a rapport I can take an unwary opponent's balance without physical contact.
Each of these skills fit more naturally under different categories, but if you want to learn them all the most efficient way is to study a Chinese internal martial art or something similar.
I used to go to a Tai Chi class (I stopped only because I decided I'd taken it as far as I was going to), and the instructor, who never talked about "chi" as anything more than a metaphor or a useful visualisation, said this about the internal arts:
In the old days (that would be pre-revolutionary China) you wouldn't practice just Tai Chi, or begin with Tai Chi. Tai Chi was the equivalent of postgraduate study in the martial arts. You would start out by learning two or three "hard", "external" styles. Then, having reached black belt in those, and having developed your power, speed, strength, and fighting spirit, you would study the internal arts, which would teach you the proper alignments and structures, the meaning of the various movements and forms. In the class there were two students who did Gojuryu karate, a 3rd dan and a 5th dan, and they both said that their karate had improved no end since taking up Tai Chi.
Which is not to say that Tai Chi isn't useful on its own, it is, but there is that wider context for getting the maximum use out of it.
That meshes well with what I have learned--Bagua is also an advanced art, and my teacher doesn't teach it to beginners. The one of the three primary internal arts designed for new martial artists is Xingyi. It's too bad I'm too pecuniarily challenged to attend the singularity summit, or we could do rationalist pushing hands.